


Misconceptions

by goddessofcheese



Category: overwatch
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9580061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofcheese/pseuds/goddessofcheese
Summary: Mei is convinced that Zarya looks down on her. Zarya is convinced that showing off can capture Mei's affections. Angela is convinced that they're both being silly. One of these people is right.One-shot from my "Ovenwatch" bakery fluff AU series





	

“Allow me!”

And just like that, the bag of flour surged up and out of Mei’s arms, lifted by some unknown force above her head. In the split moment between that and her brain registering what had happened, her vision spun as her hands continued to think they were struggling with forty pounds of flour and she lurched forward under the lack of weight. Her glasses tumbled from her nose to the floor with an alarming clatter. But even in all the blurred confusion, Mei could make out one thing: a streak of pink, neon and blaring against the otherwise plain backroom of the bakery. And just like that, clarity dawned on her.

Ah. _Zarya_.

“Ah! My apologies, Mei.” At least she sounded apologetic. Any anger Mei had bubbling up fell flat at the sound of it, coming out as a small sigh instead of an outburst.

“N-no, it’s okay,” she replied, bending down to pick up her glasses, inspecting them carefully. They were intact, thank goodness. The brick flooring of the bakery had been the end for more than one pair of her glasses… especially since Zarya had joined the shop.

She didn’t mean to be in the way, and that was why Mei could never stay mad at her for more than a few moments any time she bumped into her. Or stepped on her foot. Or, perhaps, lifted things out of her arms without much warning under the pretense of being helpful.  But the shop was old and rather antique. Whoever had owned it had not really considered the idea of a worker being a six foot five and a lifelong bodybuilder and the other being a short-sighted clutz.

Another soft sigh.

Her vision restored, Mei looked up to Zarya’s smiling face. There was another reason she couldn’t be mad at her. She was always smiling, if sometimes in a cocky “I can bench press the oven you know” type of way. Mei wondered what it was like to be so confident all the time. It must be... nice...

“You are fine?” Zarya shouldered the bag like it was filled with air. “Really?”

“I’m really okay,” said Mei again, trying to put a bit of force into it. “Y-you didn’t have to do that.”

“What? Oh this? You looked like you needed a bit of help!”

Mei scowled. “I was doing fine.” At least she had been doing fine then. Had Zarya seen her struggling to pick it up initially? Oh please say she hadn’t.

Zarya’s single, uplifted eyebrow gave all the confirmation she needed and Mei’s face turned hot.

“Where did you need this to go, friend?”

“I… Lena needed it at the mixer.”

With a nod, Zarya turned and walked off with the flour, with Mei watching her back. She was… not angry. Okay, maybe a little angry. In a deflated way that was almost worse than angry. Mei was not a spiteful person and was glad of it, but something about Zarya… something about their interactions just made her emotions rise up to just under the surface, bubbling and hot, but then as soon as Zarya flashed that smile, it disappeared like snow in the spring.

Still. Anxiety gnawed at her worries every time something like this happened. Did Zarya think she was weak? Was that why she was always going out of her way to pick things up for her or take the tools off the shelves or even just take over simple things like carrying out trays. Maybe everyone seemed helpless when you were _that_ tall and had _that_ many muscles. But Mei never saw her doing that for any of the other employees of the Amari Bakery. She would offer to help Ana out of courtesy for the older woman, but didn’t just step in and take over.

It was just Mei.

But there was no time for self-pity now. She could hear her name being called from the front of the store. Picking up her pride, Mei took a breath and went back to work. But she found it hard to focus as she did. Her mind kept, running over the scenario in her mind’s eye over and over again. Wondering what she could’ve said. What she felt. And what Zarya said and, perhaps, felt in turn.

“Excuse me...”

She blinked. A customer was staring a little, concern mixed with annoyance on her face, as she slowly held out her hand for the bag of croissants. The one Mei still had in her hand, no doubt hanging there for moments as Mei stared off into space.

“Oh. Oh! My gosh. So sorry.” She quickly sat them down in the woman’s hand. “Sorry.”

As the customer walked off, Mei turned to Hana and asked her to watch the register before leaving the room herself. She was useless like this! She had to talk to someone. Someone who would listen, and not gossip like almost every other person who worked at the bakery here.

_But I won’t let my emotions get the better of me_ , she decided firmly, even nodding to herself as she walked along. _My new year’s resolution was not to lose my temper. I can do it!_

* * *

 

“I’m not a baby, you know!”

“I know,” Angela replied, for the third time in this conversation. She had long since learned that when her co-workers were taking their anger out on bread, they didn’t want dialogue, they wanted a quiet audience for a good healthy venting. Though this was the first time she’d ever seen Mei this bothered. Sometimes she snapped, like any other person, but she always apologized quickly for it. She was usually so meek and shy. This side of her was interesting to observe.

...And a little scary too.

Mei gave the ball of dough another flip, sending flour through the air, followed by the sharp smack of it hitting the counter. Angela winced in sympathy for the flat rye bread this would make.

“I do not think she means any harm, that is,” she offered cautiously. “She hasn’t been here very long, but I don’t think she’s the type to be needlessly cruel.”

Mei’s actions slowed, staring down at her sticky hands while sweat shone on her forehead. After a long moment, she replied, “No. No, she’s…”

Angela leaned closer, curious. “She’s…?”

“She’s so nice, actually.” And that was when a smile uncurled on Mei’s face, slow and cautious like frost on a window pane. “She’s so confident and outgoing. All the customers like her already. I get upset, but never for long.” Her voice started to pick up as she went, even laughing a little as she thought of the other woman. “She has this laugh that I like. I thought it would be loud and scary, but it’s really not, it’s… it’s s nice to hear!”

“Mmhm,” said Angela as she studied her friend’s increasingly pink face with a smile.

Mei’s hands stopped entirely, her eyes focusing not on the table now but past that, at something only she could see. “But then… things like with the flour bag happen. And I feel like maybe she is judging me. That she doesn’t think I’m capable of doing something. I just… I wish…” If that was a glimmer of wetness to her eyes that Angela saw, it was quickly gone as Mei blinked it away. “I want her to like me like…”

The only sound for a while was the slow business of the ovens and fans around them -- thought if Angela’s sudden sense realization had a sound, it would’ve no doubt drowned them all out.

“I see,” she said, for lack of anything else to say, the sort of response that only happens when a conversation had hit an important but awkward speed bump. “Um--”

“Mei!”

Quick as a whip, Lena appeared around the corner, eyes wide and her hair littered with flour, making it somehow even messier than usual. “The mixer broke again, it’s goin’ crazy!”

“Oh my gosh!” Mei snapped out of her thoughts and quickly cleaned her hands off on a towel. “Let’s go!”

Angela watched them go, the sounds of Lena’s chattering bouncing off the walls as they did, until she was sure that they weren’t coming back. Good. A slow smile made its way on her face as she pulled her phone out of her dress pocket. An idea was taking shape in her mind and quickly taking hold. It could backfire viciously. But if it didn’t…

“Hello, Ana? I’m well, how are you? Excellent. Listen, I need to ask for a favor…”

* * *

 

Balloons everywhere. Streamers. Round tables with pristine plates and polished silverware. Everything was in shades of cream and gold, and the smell of violets seemed to permeate every inch of the air. Off in the distance towards the main room, classical music was softly playing as the hotel employees waited for the wedding party to arrive from the chapel.

“It’s so pretty,” Mei said in a sigh. She ran her hand slowly over the lace tablecloth on the larger table in the center of the room, reserved for the wedding cake itself. “And so elegant.”

“Er, yes!” replied Zarya with the hunted look of someone out of her depth but trying to enjoy herself anyhow. To Mei, she offered a smile. “Very fancy. You like?”

“Oh yes! I love catering the weddings, they always feel like fairytales!” As she spoke, Mei smoothed down the front of her uniform absently, maybe concerned that it was not quite prim enough for her surroundings.

_As if that were possible,_ Zarya thought while she observed her out of the corner of her eye. _She is adorable._

A man appeared, opening the two doors that led to the dance hall, with a burst of sound following behind him. He nodded and gave a thumbs up. Ah, that was their signal that it was time to bring in the cake. Nodding back in acknowledgement, Zarya and Mei quickly headed back to the bakery’s delivery van where it was parked in a small alley at the hotel’s loading dock. A cart sat at its end, waiting for the cake.

“I hope Angela is feeling better,” commented Mei. “I can’t believe she got sick so fast. She seemed fine yesterday!”

“Maybe the weather?” Zarya offered. “Winter is here, brings cold and flu with it.”

“True. Though I don’t think I’ve seen _you_ affected by it at all.”

Zarya grinned. “Russians cannot feel the cold. This?” She waved to the snowy winter landscape around them. “Like nice summer day.”

Mei’s laugh was bubbly and her dark eyes mischievous behind those glasses. “Is that so?”

“Oh yes,” declared the taller woman. With her fists on her hips, she stood up straight as a statue, though the apron with the bakery’s cute logo did take some of the nobility away from the pose. “We have the ultimate winter resistance.”

Giggling again, Mei covered her mouth shyly, maybe realizing her face was turning pink. Zarya’s own face felt quite warm. In truth, she was glad Angela had called off. Not that she didn’t like the Swiss woman, but… well. It was nice to have a chance to be around Mei some more. In her mind's eye, she could see herself carrying in the cake, back straight, muscles flexing. And just as clearly, she could see Mei's admiration when she could set down that cake without even a single crumb lost.

Or at least so she hoped.

She had once stood on the stage with hundreds of people watching, waiting to see if she failed or succeeded, and yet never felt quite as flustered as she did when around this person. Flirting was fun, and she had always been good at it. But beyond that? That was an entirely different challenge. And there was no second place if she lost. Bah. No time to think on that! Pushing such thoughts from her mind, she opened up the back doors to the van wide open before taking a step back to look at their cargo for the first time.

The cake sat on a platform inside, as pretty and glamorous as the event it was made for. Four tiers of chocolate with vanilla icing, with swirls of gold like ivy vines, and topped by sugar flowers cleverly designed to look like inedible decorations but in truth made of white chocolate specifically to be tasted. Zarya was not much of one for sweets and the designs thereof. She preferred weighty foods with strong flavors and little fuss. But even she could see that Satya had outdone herself this time. Mei seemed equally impressed, sighing in awe as she reached to start pulling the slidable platform forward onto their cart.

Almost instantly, Zarya reached for the other end of the cake, giving it a gentle tug. “Wait, allow me--”

Mei’s expression shifted immediately. Her smile disappeared and her face scrunched into a scowl. “I can handle it,” she said quietly yet firmly.

The cake box jiggled under the jostling between two women of incredibly different heights. In her mind’s eye, Zarya pictured Mei trying to move over seventy-five pounds of cake with only her own hands. Oh no. No no no. “It’s too heavy,” she insisted, pulling it back to her. “You could hurt yourself.”

Mei pulled. “What! I am not that weak that I can’t help with a delivery you know!”

“What?” Tug. “I never said that!”

“But you--” Yank. “Act like it!”

Frustration was starting to boil in Zarya’s gut, all cautionary thoughts clouded by it. “It’s too heavy for you! Just let me help!”

Swaying with force now, the cake’s icing began to tear in the seams of the tiers. This went unnoticed.

Mei glanced at it for a moment, considering, but just as quickly glared back at Zarya. Her face was increasingly flushed, no cute pink blush but an angry shade of red. “Maybe… _Maybe I don’t want your help_!”

The words came out in a shout, louder than Zarya had ever heard Mei speak. Her shoulders were shaking. But what truly put a halt on Zarya’s thoughts was realizing that Mei’s eyes were full of tears, brimming at her eyelids. And when the first one fell, Zarya’s own eyes fixated on it -- and her grip on the cake’s platform loosened.

Just a bit.

But it was enough.

The cake pitched forward, the tiers separating as it did, the crumbly interior now exposed. A few sugar flowers plummeted first, soon followed by the avalanche of pastry and icing. Both women watched in silent horror as the cake smacked onto the filthy concrete and asphalt below. But the mess didn’t stop there; powered by gravity and the weight of the impact, fondant and pastry went flying in every direction, spattering the cart, the van, and all over Mei and Zarya themselves.

“Augh!”

“Gyah!”

They both threw up their hands in defense but it wasn’t in time to prevent being splattered from head to toe in the stuff. In less than a second, the cake had gone from a masterpiece to a pile of rubbish. Peeking from between her hands, Zarya was almost morbidly impressed.

But there was no time to stare. The stunned silence that followed was brief, broken by a choked sob and footsteps as Mei turned the corner of the van and climbed into the cab. The door slammed behind her.

Zarya stared at the cake still, her body frozen even as her mind spun like a top. The wedding party was waiting. She had to go explain. Or maybe she should call Ana first. She was probably about to be fired.

Or… or… or…

She took a deep breath. Held it. And then let it go as she turned and walked to the driver’s side of the van.

Mei sat in the passenger’s seat with her face in her hands and her glasses pushed up onto her forehead. Bits of cake were getting stuck on them. But if it bothered her she didn’t show it, and neither she acknowledge the other woman getting into the seat beside her. Zarya’s stomach dropped when she heard the muffled hiccup of a sob behind her hands. What was she supposed to do? What was she supposed to _say_?

The two of them sat without saying a word for what felt like hours, though in truth only a minute went by. Zarya knew this because her eyes kept glancing from Mei to the van’s dashboard clock to the window to her own fidgeting hands and then back to Mei. Out of more automation than any actual thought of it, she reached over into the glove compartment and pulled out a napkin. Wordlessly, she held it out to Mei, who took it equally as gingerly as it was offered. Another few moments passed, though quite a bit noisier as Mei blew her nose.

Once she was done, Zarya let out a sigh. “Why… why do you think that I say you are weak?”

Mei looked up to her with puffy red eyes. “Because… because you always do things for me! Like the flour, the cake, the mixing bowl last week, that big challah delivery before that… You just started the job, and I’ve been doing this way longer than you!”

Zarya blinked, taken aback by the intensity of her words. “You wanted to carry the wedding cake by yourself?”

“Yes! I mean. No!” Mei groaned and covered her face again, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s not that I think I can do that… it’s… it’s that you follow me around the bakery like I always need your help. And it’s always just me. Not Angela or Satya or Lena!” She looked back up, a mess of emotions and frayed hair, and stared Zarya in the eye. “Why just _me_?”

Zarya swallowed hard, feeling the sweat beading on her brow. This was not how she’d imagined things going at all. This was the opposite of what she’d wanted. What on Earth could she say to fix this?! Was there _anything_ she could say?

But in the center of her panic, a calm emerged like the eye of the storm, and she realized...

There was only one thing to say. Something she should’ve said back when she first realized it herself, before she had cause all this ridiculousness.

“I like you.”

Mei stared. “What?”

“I… like you!” With determination, she reached out and took Mei’s hands into hers, enclosing them in her own much larger ones. Her throat felt so tight and stiff. God, this should’ve been so easy! But Zarya was not someone who gave up lightly. She soldiered on with as wide of a smile as she could, hoping it showed even an ounce of her sincerity. “I… I wanted to talk to you. And be around you. I wanted to… show off a little, you know? And so I see you with flour and think, ‘oh, yes, I can do that’! But I was… I was not thinking.”

“Zarya…” Her name on Mei’s lips sounded so delicate, softer than Zarya herself had ever been. It made her resolve tremble for a moment but she pressed on.

“I am sorry. I did not realize that I was upsetting you.” Releasing Mei’s hands while still holding her gaze, she repeated again, “I am sorry. I… understand if you don’t want to work with me anymore.”

Mei was still staring up at her, mouth agape, not even blinking when a piece of cake fell from her glasses and splattered onto the seat. “You… were intimidated by… _me_?”

Zarya swallowed stiffly. “Well… I mean… I thought a girl like you, maybe talking to me wouldn’t go so good! You are very smart, I know, and I thought that--”

But she never finished her words as Mei started to quietly chuckle. And then it became a longer, higher giggle. And finally became a loud, bursting laughter. Tears came to her eyes again, but now Zarya saw that she was smiling through them as she wiped them away with her hands. But icing on her face only got spread around with wide streaks of chocolate and vanilla.

Zarya started to laugh as well as she sagged under her own relief. “You are not mad?”

“I was! But I just… Hee!” Mei sniffled. “I couldn’t imagine you being shy! You always seem so happy and confidant!”

“Usually I am!” Zarya said just a little defensively. “It’s just… well. You make me feel… er... feely things.”

Mei’s grin was impish and cute and god Zarya was so glad to see it back. “Oh really? Feely things. Is that a Russian thing too?”

Just as Zarya opened her mouth to offer some funny quip about her people, a horrified scream erupted from behind the van. Slowly, both women glanced at their respective rearview mirrors and then back to each other.

“He looks angry.”

“Very.”

“We should probably go talk to him.”

Mei paused as Zarya reached for the door, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Wait.”

Zarya turned back to her. “Hm--?”

It happened so quickly that Zarya’s hand never left the door. But her grip on it went slack as her mind considered the other things going on in this exact moment. The feel of soft, small hands on her right arm. The warmth another person’s breath on her cheek. And the realization that Mei was kissing her. Delicately, softly, so carefully placed that she almost couldn’t feel it through the intensity of her own heartbeat, but a kiss nonetheless.

Mei pulled back, leaving behind the faint smell of vanilla. As bold as the action had been, now she shrank back with uncertainty. “I…” She pulled her glasses back down onto the bridge of her nose. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Done what?” Zarya was starting to grin wider than she felt like she ever had before.”Destroying a cake in a big fight? Or just kissing?”

Mei giggled but only briefly as she immediately sobered up. “Oh. They’re going to be looking for us.”

“Nnn. Yes. I suppose we do need to fix this. This could cost our jobs, I think.”

“Oh I don’t think so. You should ask Lena about what she did with the dishwasher last year. But, um, we should still go out. We can fix this.” Mei’s smile was wide and fresh. Adorable as ever. Zarya felt her heart grow even softer for it. “Together, though.”

“Together. I like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! For those curious, all "Ovenwatch" fics are singular and not really meant to be part of a larger, coherent universe.


End file.
